Entertainment

Online Fashion Retailer Bluefly Tries On Social Gaming

Online designer fashion retailer Bluefly has partnered with social rewards startup Badgeville to add social gaming into its website experience.

Bluefly will be rewarding customers for onsite shopping behaviors including watching videos, reading blog posts, writing reviews or creating wishlists. The idea is to turn shoppers into Bluefly-engaged fashion gamers.

"Players" will earn badges, based on their behaviors, that highlight their various fashion credentials. The more badges earned, and the higher quality, the better chance the Bluefly shopper will have at unlocking tangible rewards that come in the form of early access to products, badge-holder specials and discounts.

“At Bluefly, our customers are highly engaged in the world of fashion. They are voting on celebrity styles; they are talking with each other on our site to discuss outfits. Our goal is to look for innovative ways to foster that passion and to create opportunities for interaction,” says Bluefly CEO Melissa Payner. “The partnership with Badgeville is a great addition to our site because social games incentivize our customers for their interactions — interactions which we see as a key component of growing and strengthening the Bluefly community.”

While its unknown how shoppers will react to the new system, Bluefly, if successful in converting its customers into more engaged shoppers, has an opportunity to be a trendsetter among its fashion retail competitors.

The deal is also a win for Badgeville; the young startup already has competitors such as Bunchball in the white label social gaming space. This particular partnership should help Badgeville stand out and attract more top-tier clientele.

Both Bluefly and Badgeville are mum on whether money exchanged hands as the partnership was formed.

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